Since the House of Commons Special Committee on Electoral Reform (ERRE) tabled its report in December, the national conversation has largely focused on potential changes to the electoral system. One of the committee’s more significant recommendations related to the future of online voting in Canada, however, has flown under the radar.

The committee recommended that Elections Canada not adopt online voting at this time, but work with stakeholders to determine how election technologies can maintain electoral integrity and voter access, notably for persons with disabilities. This should not be dismissed as an insignificant recommendation as it has the potential to influence the modernization of voting in federal elections in Canada.

While Elections Canada could certainly start work on this, development of online voting approaches in other jurisdictions has shown that working with experts – social and computer scientists – is a best practice. In Geneva, Switzerland, for example, the decision to leverage expert knowledge substantially improved the design of the online voting system.

Experts leading research on both sides in Canada want to work in partnership. We recognize that such changes to voting rules require interdisciplinary collaboration to ensure a robust policy framework and technical standards. One significant hurdle to moving forward, however, is the scientific granting system in Canada, notably for computer scientists and engineers.

The current model for scientific-led projects is heavily biased toward industrial partnerships with the goal of commercialization, job and revenue creation. This approach makes sense in many situations, applied as a primary strategy; however, it means that projects in the common good (such as secure, accessible elections) can fall between the cracks of fundability.

In fact, almost all science and technology research grant programs in Canada preclude research partnerships with governmental organizations, and consequently election agencies. And Elections Canada, for its part, cannot fund outside research, which leads to a dilemma because implementing the ERRE recommendations is only realistically achievable through interdisciplinary research into new advanced election technologies.

It’s worth noting the national social science grant agency is not as focused on commercial development and gain and more open to government collaboration. These types of grants could fund projects related to policy or guidelines, but not development of technology.

While it’s not a bad thing to have an industry focus, and collaboration between university and industry delivers value to Canadian society, failing to broaden the scope to support government projects misses an opportunity to make a broader contribution to knowledge and development.

Such opportunities are being prioritized and acted on in other jurisdictions such as the United States. The Department of Homeland Security recently stated that election infrastructure such as voting machines and voter registration databases will now be designated as critical infrastructure. The National Science Foundation also announced $76 million to fund interdisciplinary projects on cyber security, including non-technical fields such as economics, usability and human factors. This program is designed to protect “growing social and economic benefits of cyber systems while ensuring security and privacy” and will foster the exact type of research we discuss here.

Shouldn’t there be additional possibilities to undertake such work with the public sector in Canada? Making changes to foster this type of collaboration could go a long way to supporting the implementation of the ERRE’s recommendations related to online voting, the future of election policy and the modernization of elections in Canada.

The need to pursue this type of research is made more pressing given that the government’s MyDemocracy.ca survey results report that for many, support for online voting is contingent upon system security. Such research is additionally important because online voting activity at lower levels of government is growing. It has been used in 200+ municipal elections in the provinces of Ontario and Nova Scotia and in a recent plebiscite in Prince Edward Island. Technical and policy developments could help other levels of government making headway on election modernization.

Like it or not, internet voting is happening, and we can expect interest and adoption to increase. The need for interdisciplinary research into secure and accessible online voting technology has never been greater. We have the expertise in this country. With the ERRE report we have the vision. What we need now is a way.

Aleksander Essex is an assistant professor of software engineering and cybersecurity at Western University. Nicole Goodman is Director at the Centre for e-Democracy and has a concurrent appointment with the Munk School for Global Affairs at the University of Toronto.

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